Crime-family values have never been a losing bet at the movies. Just ask the Corleones. And it's even better when the laws being broken are unwise, unfair and/or administered capriciously, as in "Lawless," director John Hillcoat's often-gripping Prohibition-era drama, which melds two of the more popular genres in cinema, the gangster movie and the western. What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, a couple of things. But let's begin with what's right. Adapted from a 2008 novel by Matt Bondurant ("The Wettest County in the World") and based on his own family's whiskey-soaked history in the hills of Franklin County, Va., "Lawless" really looks like the rustic South of the 1920s. Two of Mr. Hillcoat's more faithful collaborators over the years have been production designer Chris Kennedy and costumer Margot Wilson, and it's easy to see why: You can sense the filth, and smell the rust, and feel the ingrained poverty that might well convince a family of survivors (of World War I and the Spanish flu) to make their fortune selling moonshine to their neighbors. Current anarchic political sentiments aside, the message of "Lawless," a movie about victimless crime and immoral lawmen, has nearly foolproof appeal: The Volstead Act was an unpopular piece of legislation, and it has always been easy to portray its enforcers as oppressors ("Revenoo-ers!"). Or worse.

In this case much worse. "Lawless" is one of those films that, through seeming serendipity, has a cast that defines its moment. There have been others—"The Breakfast Club," "The Godfather" and "Silverado," to name one irrelevant and two relevant examples. But "Lawless" really lucked out.

It has Jessica Chastain ("The Help," "Tree of Life") as the girl with the past and Mia Wasikowska ("Jane Eyre") as the wide-eyed innocent, both of whom help make a boy movie into something more. The great Gary Oldman, who suddenly seems everywhere, has a relatively small and decidedly ham-scented role as a notorious Chicago mobster, but his mere presence gives the movie a kick. The promising Jason Clarke, as Howard Bondurant, and Dane DeHaan ("Chronicle"), as the Bondurants' lame mechanic, Cricket, are very good, too. But no young star is on more of a rise than Tom Hardy, as the wise-but-lethal Forrest Bondurant, the family's Michael Corleone and Frank James. Mr. Hardy has played out-front and outrageous ("Bronson"), he's disappeared into ensembles ("Inception," "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"), and he's made a few unconscionable choices ("This Means War"). But even behind the silly mask of the evil Bane, he brought a menacing physical authority to "The Dark Knight Rises." And he does the same for "Lawless." There is a lot of very visceral violence in the film, and no one, for a moment, will doubt that any of it is outside the boundaries of Forrest Bondurant.

And yet "Lawless," which was smartly adapted by rocker-cum-screenwriter Nick Cave, raises a couple of questions: 1) Why is Shia LaBeouf a movie star? And 2), why isn't Guy Pearce more of one? The answer has to do with how we define "movie star." Mr. Pearce, who has seldom given a less-than-first-rate performance (including, for Mr. Hillcoat, in "The Proposition"), isn't afraid to allow his own personality to be subsumed by his character's, as it was in "L.A. Confidential," "Memento" or "The King's Speech," in which he played the unctuous, abdicating Edward VIII. In "Lawless," his malignant outsider, Special Deputy Charlie Rakes, possesses a virtuosic set of villainous traits: He's self-righteous, dishonest, hypocritical and sadistic. He's also a closeted dandy who harbors a sneering disdain for all these Blue Ridge Mountain bootleggers he's supposed to bring to heel. As a character, he's completely over the top. But since the rest of "Lawless" is so grounded in its space and time, Mr. Pearce can let loose, and does.

And then here's Mr. LaBeouf, the "Transformers" lad. He is the putative star of all this gangster action, because his character, Jack Bondurant, is the one who supposedly develops—from weakling to freelance moonshiner to gun-wielding hero. Unlike his brothers, Jack has no sense of himself, nor does he seem destined to inherit Forrest's motto, "We control the fear": Fear is power in Franklin County, and the party who can instill the most will determine whether a Bondurant, or Charlie Rakes, is left standing when the gun smoke clears. But Jack doesn't quite develop. He just becomes more annoying. And that seems to be because Mr. LaBeouf can't distinguish between confidence and arrogance.

While it's hard to blame Mr. Hillcoat for this flaw in the fabric of "Lawless"—the performances otherwise are fine—it may well be that he can't tell the difference either: He's already cast Mr. LaBeouf in his next film. But maybe he needed a movie star.

'Ornette: Made in America'

ENLARGE

Ornette Coleman in 'Ornette: Made in America.'
Milestone Films

Watch a clip from the 1985 film "Ornette: Made in America." Directed by Shirley Clarke, this documentary chronicles jazz musician Ornette Coleman, his trio, and other major jazz talents. (Video: Milestone Film)

Two American originals came together nearly 30 years ago and made one of the best documentaries to grace theaters this year. "Ornette: Made in America" (1985), directed and edited by the late, great Shirley Clarke ("Skyscraper"), is being rereleased today in New York after a painstaking and affectionate restoration by its distributor, Milestone Films; UCLA restorationist Ross Lipman ("Killer of Sheep"); the film's original producer, Kathelin Hoffman Gray; and its cinematographer, Ed Lachman. An expressionistic, kaleidoscopic, not-quite-biopic about jazzman Ornette Coleman, Ms. Clarke's portrait is of an extraordinary artist and genuinely likable man. It's significant that Ms. Clarke edited her own movie: Like Mr. Coleman's music, it is a work that is personal, singular and free, a collage of visual imagery, arcane references, archival footage, music (naturally), and just a dash of dramatic re-creation.

Providing the hook for the film, and a kind of undercoating when Ms. Clarke's canvas gets broader and her brush strokes wilder, is Mr. Coleman's "Skies of America," which had its premiere at the long-gone Caravan of Dreams arts center in Fort Worth, Texas, on Sept. 29, 1983—"Ornette Coleman Day" in his native city. That there were a lot of empty seats in the theater that night is something Ms. Clarke (who died in 1997) might have covered up with a few diplomatic camera angles. But Mr. Coleman's work—with its echoes of Dixieland, Gustav Mahler, Nigerian tribal music and chaos—has never been for everyone; visionary art never is. Ms. Clarke certainly knew about that. Years after its initial release, "Ornette: Made in America," part of Milestone's continuing "Project Shirley," still feels fresh—its moves always surprising, yet always somehow perfect.

'Sleepwalk With Me'

Guys: If you've just moved in with your girlfriend, it's probably best not to say, "You don't want to get married…right?" Such verbal impetuosity brings no end of trouble to wannabe comic Matt Pandamiglio (Mike Birbiglia) in "Sleepwalk With Me," which made $65,000 during its New York opening last weekend—a huge return for a one-screen debut. It now goes wider for the benefit of a nation hungry for likable, quirky, gentle comedy based on radio: Mr. Birbiglia, whose collaborators include Ira Glass of NPR's "This American Life," developed "Sleepwalk" out of a one-man show he did for The Moth live storytelling series and then for Mr. Glass's show, and it has the easy flow of well-crafted fiction.

Matt, who wants to be a comedian for no apparent reason—he's painfully unfunny—hits his stride once he starts using his relationship with Abby (the lovely Lauren Ambrose) as fodder for his act. His subsequent guilt and romantic uncertainty, however, play havoc with his sleep patterns: He drives while unconscious, and jumps out windows. Is there reason to be concerned that so much popular culture is about young men not wanting to become adults? Probably. And yet "Sleepwalk With Me" makes the subject palatable, funny and maybe even touching.

'Samsara'

There may be no words within "Samsara," a visually startling work of global cinematography. But there is a narrative, one by which the movie undermines itself.

Watch a clip from "Samsara," a new film from Ron Fricke, the director of "Baraka." Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders. (Video: Oscilloscope Laboratories)

Created by the team behind the similarly intentioned "Baraka" (1992), "Samsara" was five years in the making, a survey of the physical world in terms of architecture and aesthetics, a film into which one can, at first, immerse oneself in the visually sublime. The objectives of director Ron Fricke and producer-writer-editor Mark Magidson seem pure enough: They are going to find a kind of universal map of existence through forms both accidental and intentional, natural and otherwise: Fleshy formations in stone, and abstractions in flesh; the sculpturelike contours of a corpse; the voluptuous curvature of a volcanic plume. "Samsara," loosely translated Sanskrit for "the cycle of life," travels the world—from an endless field of Buddhist stupas in Thailand to the decadence of Versailles; from the halogen-lighted hallucination of a Los Angeles freeway to the blue, mud-caked warriors of Africa. It's a purely sensory journey until the pictures start making editorial comments, in slaughterhouses and garbage dumps. The faces of the people we encounter suggest that the filmmakers told them, "Look into the camera and make it feel guilty." There's a place for sociological critiques, but "Samsara" had seemed to aspire to something, if not greater, then at least grander. In the end, it decided to be meaningful.

—Mr. Anderson contributes film criticism and coverage to a variety of publications. Joe Morgenstern is on vacation.

DVD Focus

'Tombstone' (1993)

ENLARGE

The Earp brothers were lawmen, but they certainly knew how to bend an ordinance in this now-classic and formidably cast western. Kurt Russell is the rock-jawed Wyatt Earp; Bill Paxton and Sam Elliott are brothers Morgan and Virgil; and Val Kilmer, stealing the show, is the tubercular Doc Holliday. A revisionist western, in the sense that nothing gets sugarcoated, it also features Dana Delany, Stephen Lang, Powers Boothe, Jason Priestley, Jon Tenney, Billy Bob Thornton (as a obnoxious faro dealer), Joanna Pacula, John Ford vet Harry Carey Jr. and, yes, Charlton Heston.

'Animal Kingdom' (2010)

Writer-director David Michôd's bracing crime drama earned an Oscar nomination for Jacki Weaver as Janine "Smurf" Cody, the sociopathic matriarch of a brood of Australian criminals for whom family values are second only to self-interest. Though James Frecheville is the ostensible star as Smurf's grandson, Joshua—the youngest and most vulnerable of the Codys—it's Ben Mendelsohn who leaves the deepest impression as the most sadistic yet needy of Joshua's uncles, members of a clan whose downward spiral is accelerated by detective Guy Pearce and their own craven impulses.

'Silverado' (1985)

Lawrence Kasdan's traditionalist western is one of those movies you can watch in chunks. It's on cable? Watch 20 minutes, then go out to dinner. Almost every moment is entertaining, thanks largely to a roster of actors who, a few years later, would have cost more than the national debt to bring together: Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, Kevin Costner, Scott Glenn, Brian Dennehy, Lynn Whitfield, Linda Hunt, John Cleese, Rosanna Arquette, Richard Jenkins and Jeff Goldblum (to name a few). Only Messrs. Glenn and Costner play brothers, but the quasioutlaw camaraderie is a big part of the movie's charm.

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